Protected's recent activity
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Comment on Joy of sharing a creation replaced by a longing sadness in ~talk
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Comment on Joy of sharing a creation replaced by a longing sadness in ~talk
Protected Link ParentI don't think there's that big an overlap between bots and VPNs, honestly, and I have no trouble using VPNs to access plenty of large services that are hardened against bots - occasionally you get...I don't think there's that big an overlap between bots and VPNs, honestly, and I have no trouble using VPNs to access plenty of large services that are hardened against bots - occasionally you get the cloudflare captcha and that's about it.
Twitch is just extra bad with VPNs because they run regionalized ads and most VPN users are evading the ads of their home region, often resulting in fewer ads being displayed. Twitch might tell you some nonsense about streamer revenue but it's their own revenue they care about - they want you to buy Twitch Turbo for the same outcome.
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Comment on archive.today is directing a DDOS attack against my blog in ~tech
Protected Link ParentHalf of my comment was spent explaining exactly why the behavior causes real harm, contrasting it with the typical - morally defensible - copyright infringement which is enabled by archive.today.Half of my comment was spent explaining exactly why the behavior causes real harm, contrasting it with the typical - morally defensible - copyright infringement which is enabled by archive.today.
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Comment on archive.today is directing a DDOS attack against my blog in ~tech
Protected Link ParentThat's interesting, thank you for letting me know. I don't have a lot more time right now but glancing through the wikipedia article, I see that in most cases either the information must have been...That's interesting, thank you for letting me know.
I don't have a lot more time right now but glancing through the wikipedia article, I see that in most cases either the information must have been private, or there must be some kind of demonstrable intent to harm or harrass, right?
Portugal is considered to have very strong privacy laws (AFAIK) but I don't think any penalties would have been enforced against the author here. Instead, the law would have protected the owner of archive.today by making any personal information inadmissible as evidence in court. (Disclaimer: Not A Lawyer!)
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Comment on archive.today is directing a DDOS attack against my blog in ~tech
Protected (edited )LinkAs someone who has had to deal with denial of service attacks before: This is not a shades of grey kind of issue. Investigative journalism is not a crime. Using other people's computational...As someone who has had to deal with denial of service attacks before:
This is not a shades of grey kind of issue. Investigative journalism is not a crime. Using other people's computational resources to cause financial damage to a third party, in the west, is a crime. A real crime with real consequences, not whatever "copyright infringement" is - or in other words, not a crime in any way deserving of civil disobedience. Your electricity and bandwidth (not to mention your trust) are being abused. This costs you money and can have an impact on your address's and your ISP's reputation. The target's financial impact is proportionally much higher, and such attacks can put people out of business entirely. People who are careless or uncaring about their devices being used as a part of a botnet (because that's what this is) are complicit in causing millions of individuals and small business owners a lot of stress and grief. That's where all the spam you get comes from, for instance.
So the person running archive.today is a criminal, and if they lived in a western country they would be condemned to spend time in prison for this. This has happened to other such criminals in the past. It's imperative that we all work toward reducing reliance in this service to zero as quickly as possible.
EDIT: Typo
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected Link ParentIt's the kind of videogame playing I genuinely enjoy. I always try every gift (and I enjoy most indie games, I think). Thank you for the coincidental backup Nocturnal gift opportunity as well (the...It's the kind of videogame playing I genuinely enjoy. I always try every gift (and I enjoy most indie games, I think). Thank you for the coincidental backup Nocturnal gift opportunity as well (the one I didn't accept)!
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Comment on What are your food aversions? in ~food
Protected LinkAsparagus: Not even once. Garlic: Gives me mouth sores and makes me feel sick. People put it in everything here. It also makes everything taste like garlic during and for several hours after the...Asparagus: Not even once.
Garlic: Gives me mouth sores and makes me feel sick. People put it in everything here. It also makes everything taste like garlic during and for several hours after the meal, which I dislike. I like the actual flavors of things.
There are a bunch of things that impact my digestion that I love, such as modern brussels sprouts, chestnuts, artichokes, chili peppers, etc.
I like almost everything people have mentioned so far. Not a huge fan of shrimp or blue cheese but I will eat them in a pinch. Seafood, fruits, cabbage-adjacent vegetables, eggs and olives are all extremely common and an integral part of the gastronomy here, and our food has an excellent reputation.
(Americans in particular seem to have a strange aversion to olives that I've seen portrayed in popular culture multiple times. It's so strange to me.)
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected LinkThis weekend I played Nocturnal. Received last giveaway from @CannibalisticApple ! It's a competently made combat-action 2D sidescroller/platformer in which you control a protagonist who uses...This weekend I played Nocturnal. Received last giveaway from @CannibalisticApple !
It's a competently made combat-action 2D sidescroller/platformer in which you control a protagonist who uses fire-related abilities to fight shadow monsters. You accomplish this by setting your sword on fire temporarily using torches found in the levels/background. Besides unlocking ability use until the fire goes out, this also provides light and makes the shadows vulnerable, and best of all, it can be used to light other torches on fire, extending your ability to explore and fight, and solving small puzzles. This game is a pyromaniac's dream as it encourages you to basically set everything else on fire as well; both kills and destruction are rewarded with a currency that can be spent in a small skill/upgrade tree.
The game looks good and has a fine balance. By the end a lot of monsters are coming at the protagonist at the same time, requiring the use of the various special abilities you unlock, but this isn't super difficult to figure out. I thought the torch-sword-torch fire spreading mechanic had great potential and, if anything, the main disappointment was that the game was pretty short at only 3 hours!
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Comment on The hidden cost of AI art: Brandon Sanderson's keynote in ~tech
Protected Link ParentI'm really glad you brought this up, I was wondering if someone would! Not long ago we had here on Tildes (at least I think it was? hard to keep track of everything) a submission from an article...communication
I'm really glad you brought this up, I was wondering if someone would!
Not long ago we had here on Tildes (at least I think it was? hard to keep track of everything) a submission from an article in which a professor quoted Stephen King's On Writing: "writing is telepathy".
The professor argued that they weren't concerned about students using AI to write because AI can't write. There is no one there to communicate, so whose telepathy is the reader receiving, really?
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Comment on The hidden cost of AI art: Brandon Sanderson's keynote in ~tech
Protected Link ParentI found this nice video that explains the process (although it focuses more on beta).I found this nice video that explains the process (although it focuses more on beta).
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Comment on The hidden cost of AI art: Brandon Sanderson's keynote in ~tech
Protected Link ParentI'm just one of the beta/gamma group. I had mentioned it before on tildes! There are a lot of us, check the acknowledgement pages on his books :)I'm just one of the beta/gamma group. I had mentioned it before on tildes!
There are a lot of us, check the acknowledgement pages on his books :)
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Comment on The hidden cost of AI art: Brandon Sanderson's keynote in ~tech
Protected LinkWhen I was a child all my musical taste amounted to was the casual enjoyment of the fragments of whatever recognizable pop songs played on the car radio on my way home from school. We (well, our...- Exemplary
When I was a child all my musical taste amounted to was the casual enjoyment of the fragments of whatever recognizable pop songs played on the car radio on my way home from school. We (well, our parents) had a carpool thing going on, so imagine a car stuffed full of noisy kids, eating, reading, talking, whatever. The radio was on, but maybe it was ads, or comedy, or the adult driving would want to change the station to hear the news or weather report. Whether there was music, I was paying attention to it, and I found it enjoyable was random, which was never conductive to developing real taste. Under these circumstances, you merely enjoy what's immediately pleasurable - the musical sugar, let's call it.
I became an adult, and over the years I started paying attention to music and grew to appreciate the talent and skill of the artists who create it. My taste quickly veered towards rock, a genre that features untold heights of virtuosity when it comes to guitar, bass and drums. It grew to encompass metal and prog (and here you start having more keyboards, flutes, violins). But it's not like I require a song to have at least five different time signatures before I respect it. Enter psychadelic. Punk. Broadband Internet arrived and liberalized (in part) music publishing, and now you have new genres, new creativity. There was amazing innovation on display in Dubstep, for example.
All the while, the ol' music industry is busy streamlining. It's much more profitable when artists are produced rather than found; new music is pre-planned and designed by a team of people who are very knowledgeable about formulas, appeal and marketing. Variables are eliminated; we want artists who are beautiful, stable, clean, uncontroversial. Can they sing? It doesn't matter, we autotune. Can they play an instrument? Who cares, use pre-recorded tracks. The result is the purest, most refined musical sugar. It is sweet, and sweet is safe, because it's a flavor even a child can immediately enjoy.
I have no trouble believing AI can create this kind of art. It should be able to do it perfectly. Why would it remix clichés any worse than a human? It's literally a remixing machine. That's what it's for.
But as an adult, there is an additional dimension to my enjoyment of music. I want something beyond sweet; let me taste that bitter, that savory, those notes of chocolate and smoke. When I see a traditional (modern) artist shredding their heart off, I think of the years of effort it took them to get that good. When I hear lyrics so touching they marked a generation, I marvel at how there has never been, and never will be, another song quite like that.
When I hear Jon Anderson sing, I think "holy fucking shit, he's literally better than autotune." And I don't give a damn if the artist is ugly, elderly, disabled or wrote every single one on their songs during a three year long nonstop drug binge. They are humans who struggled and sweated to create something new, and every single one of their accomplishments is more valuable than anything that will ever come out of the remixing machine, whether the machine is powered by five audio engineers, a PR manager and twenty marketing experts or by three Nvidia GPUs.
Does that mean AI is useless, undesirable or otherwise doomed to fail? No. To a lot of people, it suffices. What do people want out of art? Different things, for sure, and that's OK. There are people who want enough comfortable repetition out of their entertainment to make recurring themes, genres and formulas profitable in all kinds of fields - TV shows, LitRPGs, FPS games, whatever. One might argue - and this is a suspicion of mine rather than anything I have hard data for - that most people want at least some predictable comfort in the content they consume. Actually parsing what's taking place in an Ursula K LeGuin novel can demand more mental bandwidth than we have on a day by day basis. Sometimes we're tired and just want to see yet another anime boy win a martial arts tournament, or something.
But true artists will always be the ones I admire and respect. I don't want to go without their works; I'm definitely willing to pay to experience them. Once in a while I eat chocolates and biscuits but too much sugar is cloying!
I'm currently helping with Brandon Sanderon's upcoming book, The Fires of December. Some of you may not be fans of his work - on a mental diet? - but I can guarantee that at least he wrote it himself - and a lot of people work very hard to make sure a good book will be published later this year (note: timeline as announced; I have no privileged information and cannot answer any questions). And when you read a passage and think "that was clever!" or "that was surprising!" isn't it cool to think that was a real human being clever and surprising?
(P.S.: Pre-emptively acknowledging the pretentiousness of my disdain for modern pop music ;) )
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Comment on Two small word games in ~games
Protected Link ParentOh that's a very helpful second guess for sure. Yeah I hadn't realized I could go out of range! So I just stared at it for a long time.Oh that's a very helpful second guess for sure.
Yeah I hadn't realized I could go out of range! So I just stared at it for a long time.
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Comment on Two small word games in ~games
Protected LinkI tried today's tumbler. Pure evil. Yesterday's is much easier! I got them both in the same amount of tries; the problem is that you can easily get into a position where you just don't have any...I tried today's tumbler. Pure evil. Yesterday's is much easier!
I got them both in the same amount of tries; the problem is that you can easily get into a position where you just don't have any valid words you can fit into the current game state, so you can't make progress...
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Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Protected Link ParentWe're not equipped to perceive the scale of the betrayal enacted by "social" networks upon our very humanity. No one wants to admit that so many of us can be reprogrammed like that, not even by...We're not equipped to perceive the scale of the betrayal enacted by "social" networks upon our very humanity. No one wants to admit that so many of us can be reprogrammed like that, not even by humans but by automated rule-based decision making. It feels impossible. It feels like a weird tinfoil hat conspiracy theory.
But when examining the problem of rising authoritarianism throughout the world, I've been unable to find an explanation that doesn't ascribe the festering anger, the distorted perspective, the erosion of empathy among even formerly kindly, moral people to social networks. Message by message, post by post, algorithms wear us out over days, months, years. It's not even necessarily the content of what you're seeing, but the decision of what you are shown, contrasted with what you aren't. We become permanent elements of a global rage mob, easy prey for politicians with messages that resonate with those feelings.
I also dislike authoritarian governments, which is why if I was an absolute monarch I would shut down every social network and throw every single one of their owners in prison for life, then abdicate. (And that's a kinder punishment than they deserve.)
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Comment on A case for increasing computer literacy (but also a rant) in ~tech
Protected Link ParentWhen games/websites were much simpler, it was also easier for a child to envision how to create one, even before they had the tools to do so. That said, there are always suitable media to be...When games/websites were much simpler, it was also easier for a child to envision how to create one, even before they had the tools to do so.
That said, there are always suitable media to be curious about. It was Flash for many years. And if my nephews don't get a PC with Minecraft in a few years I'm scolding my brother!
I have friends and relatives from my age group (millennials) who reject engaging with technology, even when they had the chance to fiddle with computers in their youth, but everyone should at least have that chance, if money permits.
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Comment on I'm back in ~talk
Protected Link ParentTildists is still being unfairly suppressed, I see...Tildists is still being unfairly suppressed, I see...
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 16: Hide + Seek United Kingdom | Trailer in ~hobbies
Protected Link ParentI watched last week and already posted this on reddit - while the season was greatly enjoyable, they really need to Spoilers are implied severely slash the hiding time for the first hider - who is...I watched last week and already posted this on reddit - while the season was greatly enjoyable, they really need to
Spoilers are implied
severely slash the hiding time for the first hider - who is departing out of the country's capital city and can go anywhere - compared to the other hiders, who need to get out of whatever dead end the previous hider left them in.
Or they could randomize the starting position!
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected Link ParentI'm looking forward to picking that up later this year. It's good to know people are enjoying it. Jusant was really cool in a lot of ways but ended up feeling very limited with regard to the...I'm looking forward to picking that up later this year. It's good to know people are enjoying it. Jusant was really cool in a lot of ways but ended up feeling very limited with regard to the climbing you do.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected LinkI'm done with Memories in Orbit, having fully explored the Vessel and done almost everything there was to do - notable exceptions being one (unnecessary) boss and one platforming section that were...I'm done with Memories in Orbit, having fully explored the Vessel and done almost everything there was to do - notable exceptions being one (unnecessary) boss and one platforming section that were so difficult and so obnoxiously far from the nearest save point they were registering as actual bullying, and the final boss of one of the endings that fell afoul of my "stupid difficult bosses gating no further content aren't worth the hassle" rule. I had fun during the 42 hours I spent beating the many other difficult bosses and platforming challenges in the game! If you've played, Dr. Halyn was a particularly satisfying victory, and yes, I did the Crucible (in a single evening!)
The following remarks about a beloved game are my own and should not be construed as a personal attack against everything you are and stand for. I'm happy to discuss the game with anyone, but I don't need enlightened pedants implying I "just don't get it". Sorry to be so blunt, but this has happened multiple times before.
Mouthwashing was a generous gift from @CptBluebear . I appreciate all the giveaway gifts and it's my pleasure to spend some time with them. It's a short (about 3 hours) psychological horror walking simulator. I played through it in a single session.
My first impressions of the game were good. It has a first person camera and a pixelated, vaguely PSX-like aesthetic (textured low poly) that has become popular among scary games lately, and it's understandable why - there were some pretty good horror games around that era. At first I thought I was in for a point and click adventure game, since there are some simple tasks demanding that you pick things up and use them somewhere, but it quickly became clear that I was at all times being railroaded into doing exactly one thing and couldn't do anything else during that time. The premise seems good, with a science fiction scenario with a dash of late stage capitalism and a small cast of interesting characters. The story is told in a series of vignettes out of chronological order, with the timeline jumping around more wildly than the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's interesting to try to figure out what's going on and there's even a small plot twist.
Soon what's going on becomes more or less obvious, and the plot twist is outright revealed about half way through. No gameplay mechanics, such as the inventory or the food mixer, ever get enough use to justify their presence. At this point there are no more characters or dialogue to speak of. The hitherto rare delusion/horror sequences take over completely. The problem is that they are crap.
I was already aware that what passes for horror these days involves a combination of vaguely "disgusting" imagery and restricting player control such that you're required to plod veeery slowly through a scene. Time after time, Mouthwashing dropped me into some scenario in which I had control, but no possible way of knowing what my goal was, so all I could do was bumble around aimlessly. All of these scenes outstayed their welcome. I think my annoyance morphed into outright anger when there was a gun scene - because of course there have to be guns - in a maze with a teleporting opponent. There was no significance to this scene beyond the first ten seconds, but I still had to spend a few minutes wandering around killing or being killed. Deep.
I just don't see the point. These scenes never feel scary, tense or entertaining. They might have felt disgusting if I was 15. As an adult, it felt like someone had a bunch of stereotype boxes they wanted to tick so they just threw them all in there, good job, horror accomplished. There are pustules, childbirth, body horror, drunk people, creepy mascots, invisible monsters, delusions, hooray! I would have been happier with the game if they had skipped all this time-wasting crap and stuck with more grounded and character-related horror. After all - and the game does at least seem to understand this during the first half - in such a stressful situation, it's the people who make it scary!
And here I was playing Beat Saber yesterday on Twitch and all I got were people soliciting ;)
(But to be fair I'm not a real streamer, just some guy...)